MTFCA Forum

I'm currently working on restoring pretty much every part of my 23 runabout all at the same time. The steering column parts are being re-nickled and I got to thinking, what paint should I use on the steering column quadrant? I know it was originally black, but paint scratches off quickly from the levers moving on it and was wondering what you have done on your cars. Any ideas?

Thank you,
Stephen

Wear on quadrant is normal and looks quaint. Just don’t thickly prime or heavy paint. Clean to bare metal and single shot of good black enamel.

Painted in 1988 and shows well the throttling of this T over time.

Gloss black powdercoat won't scratch and looks nice. I have it on one of my two cars. Extra note: you need to have a quadrant with little wear or take a small triangular file to the grooves before having it powdercoated, as the powdercoating if not applied with a minimum coat, with tend to fill the grooves.

You probably won't want to go to this extreme, but bare in mind that the throttle and spark levers are held against the quadrant by spring tension. On my over restored (determined by Walt Rosenthal at a rare MTFCA judging event in the late sixties) light delivery ice cream truck I always lifted up a little as I adjusted the spark and throttle in order to partially save the paint but more importantly to keep from wearing out the teeth on the quadrant. I had that truck for 51 years and the teeth were still sharp.

Ed aka #4